Ocean Yuan is the president of Grape Solar in Eugene. He appeared previously on this blog back in November, 2009 (see here). He was on a panel discussing trade with China. Now he is in the NY Times, in the article “China Trade Case has Clear Targets, Not Obvious Goals” by Keith Bradsher on the trade complaint by US solar manufacturers against China. The part mentioning Yuan reads (here):
Chinese solar panel makers have already begun moving operations to the United States to avoid trade restrictions. With the new case, filed at the Commerce Department, some industry executives expect the Chinese industry to increase its American expansion. That could help the Chinese companies avoid import restrictions and insulate them from currency fluctuations as China allows the renminbi to appreciate gradually against the dollar.
The trade complaint, which accuses the Chinese industry of receiving unfair government subsidies and dumping its products in the United States at below cost, “will only accelerate the setting up of solar module and solar cell manufacturing in the United States,” said Ocean Yuan. Mr. Yuan is the president of Grape Solar, a company based in Eugene, Ore., that is a big importer of solar panels from China, Korea and Taiwan. Grape Solar has already been in discussions with big Chinese panel makers on ways to move more manufacturing to the United States.
And:
To avoid punitive tariffs, Chinese companies would need to make solar cells in the United States and then assemble them into panels — steps that together represent only about half the cost of a solar panel. The other half of the cost consists of a series of initial steps that result in the production of a polysilicon wafer, which the Chinese industry would probably continue to find cheaper to do in China.
Mr. Yuan said that once the necessary construction permits were obtained, it took only three to six months to build a factory that did the final step of assembling solar cells into solar panels. It takes six months to a year to build a highly automated factory to make solar cells from solar wafers.
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